Website audio/video Autoplay filter needs work
When Firefox loads a web site such as TicTok.com, the site instantly plays the very first video that loads. Now this sure sounds like there would be a very simple solutio… (আরও পড়ুন)
When Firefox loads a web site such as TicTok.com, the site instantly plays the very first video that loads. Now this sure sounds like there would be a very simple solution for this problem and the solution should be built right into Firefox's settings... right? Let's see here...
Settings\Privacy & Security\Permissions\Autoplay {pop-up window} Default for all sites: [Allow Audio and Video]
Block Audio
Block Audio and Video
Website Listbox: Status: about:welcome^privateBrowsingId=1 [Allow Audio and Video] about:welcome [Allow Audio and Video]
*the two dropdownboxes in this list have the same options as the 'all sites' dropdownbox.
So with these settings I certainly can block every website from autoplaying any audio or I can block every website from autoplaying any audio AND video. However these settings do not provide a "Block Video" only option. Why would anyone want that? Well because of the way sites like TicTok actually behave when Block Audio and Video is set. When Block Audio and Video is set, the user will have to press play on the video AND then press unmute. The user should be able to prevent the video playback when the website loads, and when the user presses play the audio should just start working without need for pressing unmute. This however, is only annoyance issue.
There is a real functionality issue as well. When looking at the Website Listbox, this component is essentially useless. The developers didn't even need to include the two "about:welcome" entries. They won't ever do anything unless Mozilla decides to add Audio/video to their welcome page (probably not happening). So the user can safely delete those two entries, but here is where it gets interesting. Once deleted, the user can not put them back. In fact, the user cannot enter ANYTHING into this listbox (why?). The only thing we can do is Remove All Websites.
What does this mean for the user? It means that I am relegated to either simply dealing with obnoxious websites and their autoplayed videos. Or I can set it so every website is blocked from autoplaying Audio and Video, but if I do that then I will have to unmute videos before clicking play. The presence of the Website Listbox sure does suggest that the user should be able to add websites, thereby creating a customized list of sites which should or shouldn't have autoplay permissions. To be quite honest, this part of Firefox seems incomplete and I hope it will see some attention soon.